Published: Sunday, April 28, 2013 at 2:09 a.m.

Last Modified: Sunday, April 28, 2013 at 2:09 a.m.

When the lottery was announced in 2005, Randy McKinely made it his goal to make sure his store was a top seller.

Hilltop Grocery, Pender County’s highest-grossing lottery store, sits next to busy U.S. 17 just north of Hampstead. The store is one of more than 6,600 retailers throughout the state. A former gas station, he had to stop fuel sales after his tanks needed $30,000 in repairs. He just didn’t have the money to fix them, so he tore out the pumps and focused on selling beer, soda and food.

And lottery tickets.

But the profit margin on convenience store staples is getting thinner. Only the lottery provides a solid return.

“The government got me out of the gas business,” McKinely said. “If I didn’t have the lottery, I’d be out of business.”

He makes 7 percent off each ticket, which is why he has a massive display with most of the N.C. Education Lottery’s offerings. And it is why he pushes his staff to know about the games and keep an eye on the lottery line.

“I never made 7 percent on gas,” McKinely said.

McKinely said many of his customers are from up north where the lottery is more prevalent. There, the lottery is ingrained in their lifestyle, he said. Before the lottery was created, he said his customers sent money to relatives to buy tickets for them or they’d drive down to Myrtle Beach.

Lottery sales have exceeded a billion dollars the past two years. A recent audit found that North Carolina’s lottery sales have climbed since 2007. Alice Garland, the lottery’s executive director, said having the lottery in the store helps business because it often pulls customers into the store.

“Their non-lottery sales have actually increased because they are getting more people in their stores and they buy a soda or a snack,” Garland said.

She said the lottery “footprint” is also very small. A store doesn’t have to devote a lot of display space for tickets.

“Our numbers look really good when you look at it that way,” Garland said.

McKinely’s store takes lottery sales seriously. He has several rules to keeping lottery customers happy. One key rule is clerks don’t let the line back up. Often the lottery line gets long close to drawing times, forcing customers to leave and play at other stores.

McKinely said variety is the key to attracting and keeping lottery customers. He keeps multiple rolls of the most popular tickets so that if one hits, he can still sell from the other rolls. Players will usually shy away from tickets that just won for fear that there was only one winner, McKinely said. He also focuses on the most expensive tickets, especially the $20 kind to maximize profits.

Stores are allowed to cash up to $599 in winnings, but McKinely makes sure he has money on hand to pay out.

“If you have cash for the winnings, 99 out of 100 people are going to buy more tickets,” he said. “I want to cash it because I want to get some of the money.”